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Wednesday, 9 November 2016

WHY TRUMP WON.

The most unhappy person in
America as Donald Trump won a remarkable historic presidential election victory
was the man on the second floor of the White House.

His legacy is about to lie in shatters.

Obama’s presidency will go down
as a domestic and foreign policy disaster.

As president you either change
Congress or you change their minds to get your policies pushed through. Obama
did neither. With imperial disdain he ruled by executive orders. He did it with the connivance of the
Washington Establishment. His style was
resented by the electorate. As were his policies.

Hillary Clinton was irrevocably tied to his failures.
Indeed, she was the architect of much of the events that worsened the world. But
apparently it wasn’t this that lost Clinton the hearts of the American people. It
was her behaviour pattern that topped any resentment Americans felt for Trump in
the battle between the two worst candidates ever presented to the voting
public.

Although, at the last minute, she
escaped FBI charges over the use of a private server, the accumulation of her
exposed lies and suspicions of corruption over her Clinton Foundation while
serving as Secretary of State raised sufficient red flags to make people take a
fresh look at Trump. The shadow of the “pay
for play” and the dubious grifting for favours will loom over the Clintons as
the need for understanding and judgement will be clarified by the FBI.

Clinton spent the last month of
her campaign dumping down on Trump rather than spelling out new policies that
would improve the lives of tens of millions of suffering Americans. While she
was trashing the Republican candidate he was explaining how he was going to
bring jobs back to America, how he will replace a hugely unpopular Obamacare,
how he would reduce taxes, how he would bring education control back to the
states, how he would build a wall and keep America safe, how he will strengthen
the military abroad and law enforcement at home, and how he would renegotiate the trade deals
that was ruining America not only in jobs but also economically.

In short, to rephrase a Clinton
stump slogan, while she went low, he went high.

The media was complicit in becoming
the propaganda arm of the Clinton campaign. With too many exposures including
CNN’s Donna Brazille passing questions to Clinton top aides in advance of
televised debates, the recruiting of “Get Trump” investigative reporters, the whitewash
of a tsunami of shocking emails and document distributed by Wikileaks that
exposed the Clinton campaign plans and payments for provoking violence at Trump rallies,and the subterfuge of the DNC against Bernie Sanders candidacy including plotting to use his Jewish faith against him in certain states.

In conversations with some
pro-Clinton friends and family it was apparent that many Clinton supporters
were so incensed against Trump that they refused to relate to questions about any
character faults in their Democratic favourite.

They were sticking their heads
in the sand refusing to see her flaws or to understand that neither of them
felt the hurt caused by poor policies and a negligence that made the world and
America a far worse place. It was this
myopia that prevented them from seeing that the guy they detested was reaching
into the wounded souls of too many Americans who find themselves far worse off
after the election of Obama and absolutely didn’t trust Hillary Clinton to
improve their lives. The late-breaking
news of massive increases in their Obama-Clinton healthcare costs confirmed
that Clinton would do nothing to lift this financial yoke off their shoulders,
a burden they can ill-afford to carry.

I found it incredible how my American
progressive friends and relations were oblivious to this. If I could see it
from Israel why couldn’t they see it from there?

We have witnessed an America too progressively
concentrating on changing society for the worst. Safe spaces got preference over
a safe America. Toilets for people who don’t know if they are male or female
make the headlines rather than forty million Americans on food stamps. When
petty criminals get shot the police are accused of criminality, but murderous
illegal immigrants are protected in sanctuary cities.

Trump got it right. The people want
to get America back on track, a track based on traditional values, common
sense, hard work, security and patriotism. It’s a society based on the same
values we love and need in Israel for our welfare and safety.

In this Trump shares much in common with Israel, other patriotic European nations struggling to shrug off the ravages of Big Brother Socialism, and Britain who exited Europe to regain its independence and national pride.

Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy
at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.